“Hello, Janos,” McAllister said, stepping into the light before Stephanie Albright could speak.
The breath went out of the old man, and he staggered backward, grabbing the edge of the door so he wouldn’t fall. His complexion had turned white. “You’re a surprise, kid.”
“I need some help,” McAllister said.
“I’d guess you do,” Sikorski replied. He shook his head wryly. “I’ll take it back, the bit about my luck.” His eyes strayed to the gun in McAllister’s hand, and the blood over his neck and at his side. “You’d better come in, then, before you fall down.”
The cabin was furnished pleasantly if rustically. There were a lot of books everywhere; on shelves, on the fireplace mantel, stacked in piles here and there, on chairs, on tables, on the floor in the corners.
“I’ve already taken care of the telephone line,” McAllister said. “Naturally,” the old man replied. He eyed the woman. “What’s with her?”
“He’s kidnapped me,” she said woodenly.
Sikorski shrugged, turning his attention back to McAllister. “So, kid, what brings you out here? You do remember that I’m retired. Six years now.”
“I need some answers, Janos,” McAllister said. He stood with his back to the door. The old man had moved across the room to stand in front of the fireplace. Stephanie stood to the right, near the entry to the kitchen. She looked like a frightened doe, ready to bolt at any moment.
“I don’t know if I can help you. Have you talked to Highnote?”
“He thinks I’m a traitor.”
Again Sikorski shrugged. “I’ve heard something about it. The Russkies gave you a pretty rough bash-up, in the Lubyanka. lots of good people have fallen by the wayside.”
“Drugs,” McAllister said.
“I also heard that you wasted a couple of our boys up in New York this morning.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Have you talked to Gloria yet?” McAllister nodded.
The old man’s thick eyebrows rose. “I see,” he said. “So what in bloody hell are you doing out here like this? I’m no doctor, though from what I can see you sure as hell are in need of one, nor is this the bloody monastery-no refuge from the Philistines here.”
“Someone wants me dead, Janos, and I don’t understand why. It’s the Russians. I killed three of them in Arlington Heights a couple of hours ago. They’d been waiting for me to show up at Bob’s.”
“Pardon me, kid, if I seem a bit skeptical, but from what I understand the Russians are your pals. Too bad, ‘cause your old dad was first rate, and I always thought you were too.”
“Then why did I come out here?” McAllister snapped. He trusted Sikorski as his father had, from the very beginning. Totally unaffected by the partisan politics of the Hill, Sikorski was the Rock of Gibraltar at Langley. Always had been. A man of rare judgment, insight, and honesty, was how he’d been described.
“You tell me,” the old man said harshly.
McAllister slowly lowered his gun and slumped back against the door. He was exhausted, and he was seeing double again. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to keep his thoughts in any semblance of order. He’d been operating on adrenaline for so long that he had very little strength left. He raised his head and looked at Sikorski. He was being given his hearing. It’s all he had wanted from the start; simply to be listened to. If anyone could or would understand, it would be this one.
“I was arrested by the KGB in Moscow on October twenty-eighth,” McAllister began, and in the retelling he was acutely aware of how little he could actually recall of his interrogation. Bits and pieces of his treatment, snatches of his conversations with Miroshnikov came back to him through his drug-hazed memories. But it wasn’t enough. He could see in Sikorski’s eyes that the old man was not believing him.
We’re making progress and I feel very good about it, Miroshnikov said. And so should you. We have finally broken down the first barrier really quite excellent.
How much had he told them? Perhaps Highnote had been correct after all, perhaps the Russians had sent him back to work as a double agent. But why then had they tried to kill him?
Sikorski was talking, but McAllister was finding it difficult to concentrate.
“Again, kid, why did you come here?” the old man asked, his voice rising.
Stephanie Albright had turned her head and was looking at something in the kitchen. She was shivering.
McAllister pushed himself away from the door, and stood there wavering on his feet, the gun held limply at his side. His body seemed remote. looking at Sikorski across the room it was hard to focus.
“Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two.” They were Voronin’s words. What did they mean?
Sikorski stepped forward, his entire manner changed, his face contorted into a mask of hate and fury. “What did you say?” he growled.
McAllister’s stomach was turning over. “I heard it in Moscow. One of my madmen… I was working him “Who else have you spoken these words to?” Sikorski demanded, barely in control of his rage.
“Nobody…” McAllister started to say when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned. Stephanie Albright had disappeared into the kitchen. “Wait,” he shouted, when the kitchen lights went out, the only illumination now in the cabin from the flickering embers in the fireplace. Sikorski had stepped over to a cabinet, yanked open a drawer, and he was turning around, a big automatic in his hand. McAllister dove to the left, below the level of the couch between them, as the old man fired, the shot smacking into the thick wood of the door.“Traitor!” Sikorski screamed in animal fury. “They’ll give me a medal for your body!”
Stephanie Albright was outside, racing away from the kitchen door when she heard the shot, and moments later Sikorski’s ragged cries. She wanted to stop, but she was professional enough to understand that unarmed there wasn’t a thing she could do for the old man. McAllister had to be stopped before he killed even more people.
As she ran full tilt back up the dirt road she fumbled in her pocket for the van’s keys that she had lifted from McAllister when she’d stumbled against him. At that instant she had known that she had been closer to death than she’d ever been in her life. He hadn’t felt a thing, but all the way up to the cabin, and inside as he was telling his insane lies, her heart had been in her throat.
Reaching the Toyota, she tore open the door, got in behind the wheel and started the engine. She had listened for more gunshots, but the cabin had been silent. Ominously silent. She imagined McAllister racing up the dark road behind her, crazy with rage.
It took her precious seconds in the darkness to get the van turned around on the narrow dirt track, and when she did she flipped on the headlights and floored the accelerator, dirt and gravel spitting out from behind the rear tires, as she careened toward the main road.
Her mind was racing to a dozen different possibilities. There wasn’t enough time for her to drive all the way back into Washington. She needed to find a telephone. Immediately, before the monster got loose again. She fixed her thoughts on Reston. It was a town of about forty thousand. There would be a service station on the highway. A telephone. Help.
She found what she was looking for less than ten minutes later on the outskirts of town. Pulling off the highway she screeched to a halt in front of the pumps, shoved open the door and leaped out. A young man in dark-blue coveralls came running out of one of the service bays, wiping his hands on a rag.
“This is an emergency!” Stephanie screamed, racing past him toward the office. “I need a telephone!”